


see you again

by merthurxmalec



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, I took the Russos canon and said 'fuck you I do what I want' to it, IronDad and SpiderSon, Kinda, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Time Travel, and I'm gonna change that because they're clearly useless, author has no idea how time travel works, but understands enough to know that the Russos' time travel makes no sense, other characters to be added - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 15:04:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19175776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merthurxmalec/pseuds/merthurxmalec
Summary: "I know you miss him, Peter. We all do."“You have no idea how I feel,” Peter spits out. “Tony belongs here – with his family, with his daughter who still doesn’t understand where her dad went. He belongs –“Peter chokes back a sob, and the “with me” goes unsaid, though he knows everyone hears it.~or, Peter finds a way to fix it all, and he will. Whatever it takes.





	see you again

**Author's Note:**

> In this house we do whatever it takes to save Tony Stark. 
> 
> This is un-beta'd, as usual, and barely even proof-read, as usual. Really, it's the product of a sad edit I saw on instagram yesterday.

Peter doesn’t remember much of what he does following the funeral.

 

He remembers walking into school, remembers seeing Ned look like he has seen a ghost. He remembers burying his head in Ned’s shoulder, holding onto Ned as if he is an anchor keeping him afloat. Ned doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t even say anything – he just lets Peter hold him and sob. Peter suspects Ned doesn’t need to ask him what is wrong – by now, the entire world knows that Iron Man has died. But the thing is, for the world Iron Man died. For Peter, it was Tony Stark.

 

He remembers seeing MJ again, sees her give him a tight smile and say “hey, loser,” but it feels wrong, sounds wrong. The smile is forced, the insult too soft. The halls look different, too – the walls are white instead of the Midtown blue. Peter walks to his chemistry lab before finding out it is now a physics classroom. He goes to his locker to find it empty – his books, his web fluid notes, his Midtown hoodie - all gone. The pictures he had pinned up on his door aren’t there either. Peter had been dreading opening his locker and finding Tony’s smiling face staring at him. Now though, not seeing it there – it feels him with an even deeper despair.

 

(He finds out from Pepper afterwards that Tony had gone down to empty his locker. She hands him the box where Tony had stored all his things, as if waiting for him to swing by and pick them up. He doesn’t open it, just pushes it deep under his bed.)

 

To be honest, he doesn’t remember much of the funeral either. He remembers standing on the steps of the lake house he knows Tony built with his bare hands, remembers looking out at the way every inch of the land in front of him was filled with people – people who loved Tony, who respected Tony, whose lives Tony impacted in certain ways. He remembers seeing the way Dr. Banner – Bruce – hung his head, his eyes clouded with a grief that Peter knows is mirrored in his own. He remembers thinking he should go over and talk to Steve, because Steve looks lost, his eyes never leaving the gleaming waters stretched in front of them long after the wreath had disappeared from eye sight, as if expecting Tony himself to rise out of the waters at any moment. He remembers talking to a boy – not too much older than himself – a boy whose life Tony Stark had quite literally crashed into, and then had refused to leave. Most importantly, though, he remembers seeing Morgan – little Morgan Stark, who looks like an exact replica of her dad. He remembers Morgan smiling at him when she saw him, as if he recognises him. He remembers seeing so much of Tony in here then, that he could do nothing except run away.

 

He remembers looking at each of these people and knowing they are grieving too, just like him, and yet he has never felt more isolated. Pepper, Rhodey, May, Happy – hell, even Bruce and Thor and Carol, whom Peter had never met in his life – had come up to him and told him he’s not alone, that they are here for him. And yet, Peter felt like none of them could understand his grief – no one there knew what to say, how to help. There was only one person who would have known what to do, and he was gone.

 

When Steve had come up to him, hours after the funeral, Peter couldn’t bare it any longer. “Don’t,” he whispered, his red-rimmed eyes looking up to Steve’s. “Don’t tell me it’s going to be okay, or that he died a hero, or that it will get easier with time.”

“That’s not what I’m here to say,” Steve says, taking a seat next to Peter.

 

“Then why are you here?” Peter asks, looking at him curiously.

 

Steve doesn’t say anything but wraps his arms around Peter and pulls him close. The wet patch Peter can feel under his cheek is testament enough to tell him that he has been crying, and it is not until Peter looks up at Steve briefly than he can see that Steve has been crying, too.

 

* * *

 

 

The idea comes to Peter very suddenly, in the middle of Ned theorising about the next season of Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

 

“Time travel,” Peter breathes out very suddenly his eyes darting over to a very confused Ned.

 

“I don’t think Jake Peralta is going to time travel, Peter,” Ned asks confused.

 

Peter laughs, and the sound surprises him.

 

“I gotta go, Ned,” he says, already shoving his books into his bag.

 

“Are you okay?” Ned asks, looking worried.

 

Peter smiles, a grin that stretches across his whole face. “I will be,” he says, and he means it.

 

* * *

 

 

“You want to time travel?” Bruce says, peering at Peter with a look that he could not decipher. “To the past? To bring Tony back here?”

 

“Not exactly,” Peter says. “There is a future version of Tony and Steve running around in 2012 right now, if we bring him back here, we aren’t changing the past because past Tony would be in his timeline, as he is supposed to be!”

 

Bruce gives him a sympathetic smile. “I know you miss him, Pete, we all do. But time travelling isn’t the way to solve this. That Tony, the one you want to bring back – he has his own timeline to get back to, one where he is crucial in defeating Thanos. That’s where he belongs.”

 

“You have no idea how I feel,” Peter spits out. “Tony belongs here – with his family, with his daughter who still doesn’t understand where her dad went. He belongs –“

 

Peter chokes back a sob, and the _“with me”_ goes unsaid, though he knows everyone hears it.

 

“Pete,” Rhodey says. “He won’t be the same Tony.”

 

Peter looks at Rhodey as if he has been betrayed. “I thought you would support me,” he says, disbelieving. “I thought out of everyone, you would support me. You would know why I need to bring him back.”

 

The wetness of Rhodey’s eyes makes Peter almost regret his words.

 

“I want to bring him back, too,” Rhodey says sadly. “I would give up my own life to make sure he gets his. But I can’t do that at the expense of everything he fought for.” Rhodey comes and crouches down next to Peter. “Tony gave up his life to make sure the universe gets its. We don’t know what repercussions bringing him back may have. We can’t let his sacrifice go to vain like that.”

 

“But it won’t!” Peter screams. “I did the calculations, I double and triple checked the calculations. Our reality won’t be affected at all!”

 

“But another one will,” Rhodey says gently.

 

“I don’t care,” Peter says, and he leaves the room before anyone can say anything.

 

* * *

 

 

Peter is only mildly surprised that it’s Steve who follow him outside.

 

Steve and Peter – they don’t talk, not since that conversation he had with him after Tony’s funeral. Steve is always _there,_ hovering around, as if he wants to say something but doesn’t quite know how to approach it. He knows Steve calls May for updates sometimes, that he asks Happy to go pick him up from school and check on him. It’s a nice gesture, Peter is mature enough to see that – and yet it infuriates him.

 

A lot of things do, these days.

 

“Why,” Steve asks as a way of greeting, and the question is not what Peter was expecting to hear. “Why do you need to do this?”

 

Peter notes the word choice there – _need_ , instead of _want_. He appreciates that distinction, that Steve is understanding that this isn’t just some demand Peter is making on a whim – this is something he _needs_ to do.

 

“Because he shouldn’t have died,” Peter says. “Because there are people who need him. Because I see the look on Pepper’s face whenever someone mentions him, or when she passes a picture of him on the walls. Because I know Rhodey does maintenance on the Iron Man armours, as if he thinks he is going to walk into the lab at any moment. Because I know that Happy still cleans his favourite cars every day. Because I see his little girl, his Morgan – and all I can think is how much she needs him, how she doesn’t deserve this life that she has been thrust into.”

Peter is sobbing now, fat tears running down his cheeks and yet he makes no move to wipe them. His lips wobble as he continues, “because I need him. Because I don’t know how to go on in a world without him.”

 

Steve nods, and his eyes hold a grief that Peter is almost shocked by. There is a weariness that surrounds him, evident in the way his shoulders droop and the unkept stubble that is littering his face. In that moment, Peter can see every moment of the last 100 years of this man’s life.

 

“I am going to go and return the stones tomorrow,” he says. He looks at Peter, “assuming we manage to go to the exact time and bring him back without any repercussions, how do we know that he will agree to come back with us?”

 

“You don’t have to worry about that!” Peter answers, a little breathless. “He’ll come. I promise.”

 

Steve nods, “then let’s bring him home.”

 

Peter feels a warmth spread through his chest, and with a jolt he realises that it is _hope._

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> so I have 1/4 of part 2 written up already and it will HOPEFULLY be up within next week


End file.
